The RACE Man – "If loving Black folks is wrong, I don’t even wanna be right!"

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The Civil War Continues

I contend that the U.S. Civil War between the Union and the Confederacy didn’t end with the Union’s defeat of the rebellious traitors in 1865. My contention is that the “rebels” retreated into a type of pseudo-guerilla warfare using the arena of partisan electoral politics as their new field of battle. It should be noted that electoral politics IS warfare without the use of guns as the primary means of winning battles and defeating one’s enemies. Indeed, there are those who consider politics to be “civilized” warfare. It could be said then that after “losing” the Civil War which they fought to maintain chattel slavery, Confederate rebels entered into a protracted civilized war to gain control of the U.S. government and its means of determining public policy.

Most historians would agree that upon being readmitted to the Union and allowed back into the U.S. Congress, the Confederates succeeded in defeating the Unionists’ attempts to “reconstruct” the nation and abolish slavery. Much of the progress made during the Reconstruction period (1865 to 1877) was undone or reversed during the subsequent takeover of the federal government apparatus by Southern rebels. Of the eleven states that rebelled, Tennessee was readmitted to Congress in 1866; South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas and North Carolina in 1868; and Mississippi, Georgia, Texas and Virginia in 1870. The so-called “Compromise” of 1877, that settled the disputed election of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, effectively ended Reconstruction when Hayes ordered the removal of all remaining federal troops from the rebellious southern states, thus leaving freed blacks and white Republicans at the mercy of Southern racists and murderers. Having already taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1875, readmitted Confederates used the Compromise to arrest control of the U.S. Senate, and thus control of the entire Congress. By use of lynchings and other forms of violent intimidation, Confederate groups such as the “White League” in Louisiana, and the “Red Shirts” in Mississippi and the Carolinas, suppressed black voter participation to the extent that “By 1905 most black men were effectively disenfranchised by state legislatures in every southern state.” (Wikipedia 1)

In doing research for this paper, I discovered (somewhat to my surprise) that, even before the Civil War, residents of slaveholding states were referred to as “conservatives;” I was under the mistaken impression that term came into general use much later in this nation’s history. In any event, the term “conservative” itself has no inherently negative meaning or intent; however, there is much to be criticized about the type of people who have appropriated the term and the uses to which it has been put. Beginning with the aforementioned pre-Civil War secessionists, and most particularly, today’s version of the old-style Confederates who currently control political power in America, and what they intend to do with those powers – the term “conservative” has an increasingly negative connotation. If they have their way, conservatives will surely re-institute color-slavery under their pretext of “making America great again.”

Credit Where Credit is Due: The “Southern Strategy”

Different sources credit different persons with creating the term “Southern Strategy” that was used by conservatives in the Republican Party to have the GOP become “the vehicle of white supremacy in the south” (Wikipedia 2). Designed primarily to appeal to Southern Whites’ racism against African-Americans, the strategy was used successfully to realign conservative white voters in the south from Democrat to Republican following the civil rights era. Kevin Phillips, a Nixon strategist, is credited with having popularized the term in 1970 when he noted, “The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the south, the sooner the Negrophobe Whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.” It should be noted that, historically, White Southerners hated and despised the Republican Party and its first elected President, Abraham Lincoln, because of the Civil War and the abolition of color slavery. It is all the more remarkable then that they could later be persuaded by Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater to “Come home to the Republican Party. This party had been anything but a “home” to them or their political aspirations!

This speaks to the potency of racism and bigotry as tools and weapons in the conduct of the American partisan electoral system. Among others, Harry Dent, Sr., Clarke Reed, and Howard Callaway all played key roles in advocating for, implementing, and conducting the Southern Strategy. However, in my opinion, the individual most responsible for putting it “over-the-top” was none other than the infamous David Duke of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKKK)! Duke persuaded Southern Klansmen to “…get rid of their sheets and pointed hats, take a shower, shave and brush their teeth, put on a suit and tie, learn to speak with as little southern drawl as possible, and take their fight into the arena of electoral politics.” The Conservatives in the Republican Party took full advantage of Duke’s influence with what became their “base,” and benefitted tremendously as a result. Whether they acknowledge it or not, the Conservatives who now control the apparatus of the Republican Party owe a debt of gratitude to David Duke for delivering the rank-and-file White Southern voters into their clutches.

With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, right-wing Conservatives concluded their slow, methodical takeover of the Republican Party. They began to move expeditiously to cement their position and build on their gains. In retrospect, it must be conceded that they were successful – perhaps beyond even their own expectations! As this is written, modern day Confederates control all three branches of the U.S. Government: 1) the Executive (Presidency); 2) the Legislative (Senate and House of Representatives); and 3) the Judicial (the federal court system, including the Supreme court and federal appeals courts). The “New Confederates” have used the partisan electoral system to win back control of the total United States of America, though it took them 153 years to complete their campaign.

Implications for Black Americans

It should be clear to any thinking, observant Black American that Confederates were willing to fight the bloodiest, deadliest war in this nation’s history to conserve their slavery-based way of life. In spite of their defeat in that war, they continued to wage sustained, guerilla-style political combat for 153 years to avenge that embarrassing loss, and I suppose there is literally nothing they would not be willing to do to win back what they lost. Every other difference between the Unionists and Confederates – except the issue of slavery — could have been negotiated with compromises reached and the war averted. However, Confederates’ determination to maintain Blacks in abject servitude was so strong that they were willing to risk everything else that they supposedly held dear for the right to continue dehumanizing Blacks! I contend that nothing has changed in this regard where the Confederate mind is concerned. And I further contend that the so-called Conservatives have recruited Donald J. Trump to serve as their standard-bearer down the final stretch toward completion of their takeover of the U.S. government and its most critical institutions, including most notably the court system and the military. What are they most likely to do to Blacks once they have consolidated their victory?

We should expect expansion and entrenchment of the “mass-incarceration” of Blacks that has been ongoing for several decades now, and intensification of police being allowed to murder Blacks on the slightest provocation. Blacks are no longer needed in the scheme of things as they are now in America, and our value as entertainers of White people is even being down-graded as non-blacks are being recruited from around the globe to replace us in those arenas. The manner in which Trump, Mitch McConnell and their fellow Confederates are directing the “illegal immigration” issue is actually a carefully concocted smokescreen to disguise what is actually going on, namely, bringing in replacements for blacks at the lowest levels of the U.S. economy where we were originally brought here to serve. Even Blacks people are saying that Hispanics are being brought into the country to do work that neither Black nor White Americans are willing to do anymore. Such immigrants, race or language notwithstanding, will have no basis on which to demand anything of America insofar as they will have contributed nothing to building this country. This is in stark contrast to the situation that obtains with Black Americans who are descendants of the Africans who were captured, kidnapped, brought here in chains, and forced to labor without compensation for generations. We have the right to demand reparations in some form or other. Immigrants, who migrate to this country of their own accord, have no such claim, and can be made to show only gratitude for having been allowed the privilege of migrating to this country now that it has been fully developed.

The previous paragraph contains only a few examples of what is in store for Blacks in America should the Confederates cement their hold on this government and its institutions. In my opinion though, the most dangerous outcome of black-hating Confederates becoming entrenched in control of government is the predictable use of Blacks as a source of human organs for transplant purposes. Just as we were once bred like cattle and other domestic animals to provide a constant source of free, slave labor; I believe there is a scheme afoot to use whatever number of blacks who will be viewed as beneficial to the Confederates’ version of an economy, as sources of hearts, livers, kidneys, etc., for groups and persons considered to be of value to the Confederate society. Eugenics, in one form or other, will be revived.

What Should Blacks do to Avoid a Worst-Case Scenario?

First, foremost, and immediately, Black Americans should “pull out all the stops” to support opponents of Conservative/Confederate candidates for office in any and all elections! The Democrat Party has not done right by Blacks in return for the loyal support we have given it since the Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt “New Deal” era, and we have yet to see what the newly-emerging Bernie Sanders-style “Progressives” will do for, with, or to us. However, in recent elections, there has been no viable alternative to supporting even Democrats and Progressives as a means of stopping the onslaught of confederate Conservatives from consolidating their hold on government, and declaring Donald Trump emperor for life! We must encourage Blacks to turn out and vote as never before, and vote against any and all candidates running under the name “Republican.”

A Confederate flag for sale at a Trump rally in Richmond, Virginia. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICOhttps://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/2016-donald-trump-south-confederate-flag-racism-charleston-shooting-213954

After we help the Democrats and Progressives beat-back the Confederates’ assault on what is left of America as a democratic republic, we can resume the serious business started by the One Million Conscious & Conscientious Black Contributors & Voters (OMCCBCV) to ORGANIZE ourselves into the force to be reckoned with that we should have already become! Black Americans MUST organize and build ourselves into a stakeholder capable of demanding a “place at the table” where and when plans and strategies are being made to have America fulfill the promises of its Bill of Rights as applied to ALL citizens!